Remarks for the Catholic Business Association of Virginia:
My name is Peter Mannion and I’m from Tuam, a small town in Galway in the West of Ireland. I’m studying Corporate Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway and this summer I have the privilege of interning in the offices of Senator Barack Obama.
For as long as I can remember I have been absolutely obsessed with the world of business. When I was 10 I was in hospital for a while and my parents offered to buy me whatever I wanted. Normal kids would have done well out of this - a bike, a pony - something good. I ended up with shares - ₤100 worth of Lloyds TSB.
I tell this story, not to loose my last shreds of dignity, but to introduce you to the profound, moral dilemma that I struggled through when I came to choose a career. I wanted to become as business man but I questioned whether it was possible to live my Christian vocation in the world of commerce. My catholic faith prodded me with a feeling of duty, a duty to serve those around me, to effect change and to be a force for good. I just wasn’t convinced that this could be achieved through the commercial world.
There are some thoughts that both consoled and challenged me along my path and I’d like to share a few of them with you today.
There was a young girl living in a small village not too far from Tuam. This was long before the Celtic Tiger had found a map of the west and at a time when the entire town was built by one man. On the day of her confirmation the bishop asked the girl “who built the world?”
The girl was unsure. With a tone of uncertainty the she announced - “Mike Coyne?” Mike was the local builder.
I think she was out the day they covered the creation!
Was she wrong? All she saw from one end of the day to the other was the handy work of Mike Coyne. He built her world.
For me this story captures some of what is at the heart of our Christian mission. It captures our challenge to be creators and to live what St Thérèse called, the little way. As business men and women we have the chance to emulate Mike. We have the chance to build, to create, to leave something positive behind from our time on earth. We are compelled to embrace this call to be creators in a manner inspired by our own moral compass with God as our eternal reference point. Our challenge is to combine the legitimate pursuit of profit with deeper concerns: concerns for the elimination of poverty and suffering, concerns for the people who we come in contact with and concern for the corner of the world we occupy.
Pope JP II said “There is no human activity - even in the secular - which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.” If we are in the world of business then that is where we are called to serve. In secondary school I became influenced by the work of Frank Duff. He wrote “We are all called to sainthood if, in the aim of serving God, we do the ordinary things of life extraordinarily well.”
Duffs mantra allowed free passage to the commercial world but there is also an inherent challenge in this logic. Are we doing the ordinary things of life extraordinarily well? I hope that throughout my career I take the time to gather my thoughts and reflect:
- What are my driving motivations
- Is my business a force for good in the world
- How about my:
- Staff
- Customers
- Community
I am dissatisfied with the notion that we can be Christians and business people separately. Our faith must inform all of our lives so we become Christian business people. This is how I imagine we can live a life of faith in a world that can sometimes be dominated by profit maximisation.
The messages of St Thérèse and Frank Duff provide us with an excellent starting point. However, in today’s world the implications of our business dealings can stretch across the globe. Climate change is the most obvious and pressing example of this.
This challenge is certainly a Christian one. It is one of stewardship but it also contains deep issues of social and intergenerational justice. It is not the people of the west that will suffer most from the devastating effects of climate change - it is the poorest of the poor who are having their land destroyed in sub Saharan Africa, it is the people of East Asia who’s climate has been transformed and it is the families across the entire developing world who have seen food prices rise beyond their means.
St Thérèse asks us to bloom where we are planted. We have been planted amidst difficult times - times that require great leadership and courage. It is the calling of our generation of business people to bloom in the face of this climate crisis.
We must all strive to be like Mike Coyne - creators, doers and the builders a whole new world!